Why won't movies sync to iPhone?

The blue dot signifies you have not watched/listened to that item.

Change your sync settings to manually manage music/video and drag the file over to the iPhone.

Are you sure the file is not there?
Any error messages?
Movies show first, then TV shows-have you tried scrolling down in the video window?

Have newer version 16G and purchased 4 movies and NONE show up in movies... can play on my PC but not on my iPhone... bad problem in the drag & drop area for copyrighted film material.

Easier verification and repair to application is needed.

Why do I pay ($40 plus tax for four movies and not be able to play!

Why is there not an answer to the problem??? It is a KNOWN bug... never had a downloaded movie play! The Movies are forced when large to be transfered or downloaded to your computer from iStore. Then they will not transfer to your iPhone to play.

Come on Apple, give us a NEW Application or a FIX for this problem... take the Movie playing out of the iPOD application side and put a NEW Movie player feature in the iPhone software itself! Also add Drop & Drag for all music and video content1!!! Currently use of iPhone without a proper file directory system is simply too crude!!! Please fix the problem with movies not being playable on the iPhone!!!Share with the thousands of internet search related queries about this exact issue. We need a fix now!!!

Personally, I'd be checking your play lists. I had the exact same issue but reversed (couldn't stop syncing movies)and it drove me mad till a kind individual on these forums made me go back and check those play lists.

My guess is that regardless of weather or not you have ticked the "sync most recent" option, there is a play list that the movie falls into that restricts it from be selected as a valid item to sync over.

I recently discovered that I could easily move movie (mov.) files easy into itunes, could play them in itunes, but had to convert them to MPEG files to successfully transfer them into my iphone. Guess iphone doesn't support any movie file format other than MPEG. I downloaded (purchases from iStore) QuickTime Pro, opened my movie files and then exported them to MPEG files. Then transferred these to iTunes....then sync with iphone and voila, was good to go. Hope that helps

.mov files are mpeg files and are syncable with the iPhone, if they are properly formatted.
Tech specs for file formats accepted:

Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats;
H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats;
MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

Though someone else may have already figured this out, I haven't seen it yet, so I thought I'd share it:

I've had problems with random movies purchased from itunes not showing up on my iphone after syncing is completed (16GB 3G.) They play fine in itunes, they show as space taken up on iphone info after sync and on the iphone menu sidebar in itunes but on iphone they do not show up under movies (or anywhere else on the phone.) Tried things suggested in forums, manually syncing, reset, re-download, etc., and tried getting apple support to help without success.

On a lark, changed the affected movies' "Media Kind" (highlight movie in itunes, command-I for info, "options" menu) from "movie" to "tv show," then went back and manually synced the movies under tv shows in itunes. Lo and behold, the purchased problem movies will now not only sync but I can now find them on them ipod under the tv show list, and they play just fine.

Again, this does not always happen with every purchased movie. (For example, recently "Into the Wild" and "School of Rock" sync normally and appear under movie list on iphone, but "There Will Be Blood" and "Office Space" required the above work-around.)

I've had no problems syncing converted quicktime or other movies, only random ones purchased from itunes.

Strange - hopes this helps someone.

I need to say that the changing the video information was a stroke of brilliance on your part. I got my iPhone 3 - 4 days ago and that whole time I have been trying to sync the movies and it just would not work...until I changed it to TV shows and voila! Thanks again and lets hope we get a fix for this soon! I wonder if it has to do with the fact that I had a touch before the phone?

Christopher

I had a free digital movie copy (came with my DVD purchase) that I downloaded directly from iTunes and it would also not sync. No error message, just no movie on my iPhone. I changed it to a "TV show" and now it syncs and appears on my iPhone. Thank you, Austinmac1! It's a shame it takes random Apple owners to find their own workarounds to software glitches, but I'm glad you shared your magic trick.

Hey,

Try right clicking the iPhone and Resetting Warnings as described here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2527
Do you now see an error when syncing purchased content to the iPhone? If so, what is the exact error message.

-Jason

I simply dragged the selected movie over to the left column under playlists, and synced my ipod. VOILA! listed under movies

Brilliant, I never would have thought of that, Got my 3g for valentines day from my fiancee, and couldnt get the synced movies to appear even though they took up HD space on the phone. This fix worked perfectly!

I was having the same problem, even getting 1 or two episodes to sync but not transfer over to my 16gb iPhone 3G. I had them all checked and had plenty of room on my iPhone but they weren't showing up on my iphone no matter what I tried. I eventually went to my tv and movie tabs in my library and looked at the individual movies/tv shows to find that several of my to-be-synced files were not check marked in my library. I checked them and they are now transferring perfectly. Hope it helps you too!

Great, but how did you change it to TV shows ?